The Spectacle

The Spectacle

By Stef – stef@crimethinc.com

Be warned – this is the unedited version and is very fucking long… but well worth reading cos The Spectacle are one of the best bands in the world at the moment!

The Spectacle is my favourite band in the world. My band/ record label mate had met a few of them some years ago while touring Europe. They were fifteen or sixteen year old kids then. A few years later our band was touring Europe again and we played a few shows with them. My aforementioned band-mate kept in contact with the band and when they finally released a record in 2003, some copies of it soon showed up in our PO box. We put it on my turntable and were blown away. These young kids from the Arctic Circle had released, on their own label, four heartbreakingly brutal and passionate songs that renewed our faith in punk rock. The Spectacle was our new favourite band. In the following year and half they made an even more impressive full length and we did a U.S. tour together. Getting to know these kids as individuals and watching them play every night were some of the best experiences of my life. While I was visiting them for a month in their hometown of Bodø, Norway we sat down and did this interview. Although The Spectacle is a six-piece (for real: Drums, bass, vocals and THREE guitars!), Jørgen couldn’t make it and Torbjørn had to leave pretty early on. The other four had a lot of interesting stuff to say though. We had a lot of fun doing this interview and I hope you enjoy reading it.

STEF- Normal bullshit–would each of you please state your name, age and the instrument you play in the band.

KJETIL- My name is Kjetil and I play the drums and I’m 20 years old.

ANDREAS- I’m Andreas, I’m 24 and I sing in the band.

ENDRE- My name is Endre, I try to play guitar and I’m 21.

MARTIN- Martin, [I] play the bass and I’m 20.

TORBJØRN- Torbjørn, I play the guitar, also, and I’m 21.

STEF- Talk a bit about how you became a band.

ENDRE- We played in two separate bands. Some of us had been playing on and off in bands since we were like 12 years old… we were in two bands and both of those broke up and, more or less through coincidence, we formed this band.

STEF- And what year was that?

ENDRE- 2000?

ANDREAS- 2000, yeah. Well, the first hardcore festival that we played was in 1999 and Nagasaki and Rise was the two bands that were joined together as this one. So yeah, it must have been around 2000.

STEF- What does your band name mean and why did you choose it?

ANDREAS- We basically took it from the book The Society of the Spectacle, but I’m not really a big fan of the book. I guess (it’s) pretty pretentious. In the beginning it was just taking something cool. I think I like the band name much more now than I have ever done before because I can relate more and more to it, but in the beginning it didn’t really mean that much to me when it comes to the politics of it. But I think I can relate to it more and more both on stage and off stage.

STEF- And what are the politics?

ANDEAS- The basic “spectacle,” I guess, if you take it from the book’s meaning–what the Situationists said is like taking things out of context and putting them into a new context to make some new meaning with it. I guess I don’t think it relates that much to the band and I don’t know how I relate to it, but we’re a spectacle when we play. I like the idea, for example, of taking a poem and take two lines out of it and make it into a new poem and I guess one of the things that is the basis for the book is that you can take parts of something that doesn’t mean anything and make it into something new that means something to you.

ENDRE- I guess to try to sum up what he said, I think he came up with the idea for the name and I’d like to say that it was because we found this amazing word that totally fitted all our ideas and thoughts about what this band was going to be but it was more or less that we needed to have a name and we chose that one and we’ve given it meaning and context later on.

ANDREAS- There’s always a higher goal with that name. We can never BE the Spectacle, we always have to achieve something more to be a greater spectacle so I think it’s a name that we always have to do more to make it happen.

MARTIN- I think the article that’s on the Rope or Guillotine CD that Frank [their roadie extraordinaire] wrote really sums up everything for me when it comes to the name. First he talks about the “spectacle,” which is this sort of way we see everything–the world–sort of like an illusion that is in front of us of how everything works, the system of laws and of economy. How it’s like this fake world that we live in that we’re convinced is the “real world” and then he sort of describes how he wanted to free himself of this and be in the [actual] REAL world and, the great part of the whole article, is that he concludes that no one really has any right to claim to live in the real spectacle, the “real” world, to have “this is true” and “this is not true” and so that is really what we’re doing–we’re creating our own spectacle, a better version… a better illusion. If you can’t have the real thing, why not create a good place to live instead of a bad place to live that’s an illusion.

KJETIL- A better illusion.

MARTIN- Yeah, a better illusion. Like the punk rock community to me is no perfect place but it’s a goddamn better place then a regular job every single day for the rest of your life. And we’ve created another illusion that’s more fitting to us.

ANDEAS- I think just the band alone is definitely a way of making that illusion on a personal stage, not changing the entire world, but MY world has definitely been changed because of this band because there are other goals to look forward [to]. There’s always a three month plan or a six month plan where things are happening, either if we’re planning to go on tour or record a record or we’re just making songs, there’s always just a short term goal that you can look forward to that we will know that in four months we will go on tour and that’s goals you don’t have in normal life. Like when things haven’t been happening with the band you end up having other goals like this vacation you look forward to at your job where you might travel away from the city for a while but there’s a so much higher goals just being in a band and the plans that take place when you make the band happen for some reason. It feels like there’s a secret world just being in a band that’s moving forward.

STEF- Y’all seem to be somewhat isolated here in northern Norway, and compared to other places I’ve been, Bodø seems to be a pretty tiny city. How did y’all come to know about punk/hc? Is there much history of punk/hc in Bodø? If so, talk a bit about it.

ENDRE- I actually got to know punk and hardcore through Andreas, I guess, a lot, or more so through his brother and the friends that he had. Punk and skateboard[ing] was really connected for a while in Bodø. The skateboard scene was really political in a way and very much like a punk scene. It had a lot of the good stuff that often goes on in a punk scene and the do-it-yourself spirit.

ANDREAS- There’s a funny story about the skateboard scene when they took over this abandoned house to make a place to skate during the winter and they broke into the house and they started making their own concrete to straighten out the floors so they can skateboard there, so there’s always (been) a big do-it-yourself spirit among the people. Some of those people are still involved. I guess the police threw them out a couple of days later but it’s like the first points toward squatting in Bodø.

ENDRE- Punk music has a history in Bodø. Both rock music in general and punk rock [e]special[ly] has existed in Bodø since like the late ’70’s or the beginning of the ’80’s. So there’s a lot of grown up people now that definitely keeps up with our band and people that have been involved with punk and music in Bodø since like the early ’80’s.

ANDREAS- Bodø was really famous, in a way, for it’s punk scene in the beginning of the 80’s because a couple of the bands that started out here made a name of their self in some way because they started releasing records pretty early. I think they had a squatted house as well here that they had shows in and the punk scene here was pretty big. I’ve seen newspaper clippings from the time and it seems like that period of time that existed from the ’80’s, towards like ‘85, ‘86, is definitely like what is happening with us now in like 2000 to 2006. It seems to go in certain waves where there are people that do really great things and its a good feeling that I have that feeling in Bodø now–that there’s great things happening. And there’s definitely a big connection between ages in Bodø and that’s a good feeling that the punk scene seems really great to me, compared to other places I’ve seen.

STEF- Yeah, I’ve definitely noticed that at shows. There’s a good variety of ages.

KJETIL- It seems like, these days, in this city, [punk has been] blossoming very much and I don’t think its been this active since the ’80’s.

ANDREAS- Definitely not. When I talk to people that were here during the ’80’s, they seem like there’s never been this much activity in the punk and hardcore scene in Bodø and DIY style which feels really good. And its strange being that we in the band are the older punk band in Bodø even though some of us are only 20, and it’s good to see the fourteen and fifteen year old kids. I can recognise myself so much in some of those people. I’m really looking forward to how things are going to be here in the next couple of years.

STEF- How did y’all become aware of anarchist/activist ideas?

ENDRE- I think I did a lot of research on it myself. Actually, literature from, for instance, CrimethInc. or other collectives or organizations in the anarchist community of today helped me a lot. I became interested in politics, like socialism and communism, fairly early in school so it was sort of a natural progression for me to come into anarchist and activist ideas and I guess its just something that hit me as good ideas when I found them.

KJETIL- For me personally, I think it was thorough becoming a vegetarian and becoming aware of politics around animal liberation. Reading a lot of literature around that made me see natural relations to other sort of politics and get in touch with activists and literature written by activists.

ANDREAS- I think that some of the ideas we have in the band don’t basically relate to any literature. Its like the way we’ve been doing things for a long time and it just fits right. Like the do-it-yourself spirit–there’s never been any question about doing things any other way.

STEF- Especially in a small town.

ANDREAS- Because the roots are sticking really deep for how to do certain things and how things work, and I don’t think we have read our politics in the books or copied some other peoples’ thoughts… I think that the connection we have had is a lot based on conversation with people we have met and being inspired by other people. When I speak for myself, I don’t see that I have been sitting reading books. That’s not my source of inspiration—it’s more the interactions I’ve had.

STEF- Assuming the similarities are obvious (kids, shows, records for sale, touring and local bands), talk about any differences you’ve noticed between the Norwegian/European and the American punk/hc communities.

ANDREAS- Youth clubs.

KJETIL- Yeah, governmental funding. For instance, we have that in Norway very much.

STEF- How does that work?

ENDRE- It works very easy. You basically have to be formally organized in some sort of way and the municipality has its own bureaucracy that works with education, culture, and kids and basically anybody can apply to them to have money for a project or a band. Some of us are involved with an organization that put up shows and booking and we get quite a lot of money for that easily.

STEF- Does that money come from taxes?

ANDREAS- Yes, I think so.

MARTIN- Yeah, the entire budget of the state and small parts of the state are from taxes and from oil [editor's note: Norway has a HUGE oil resource].

ANDREAS- The punk communities get it because there’s so much activity so, after a while, the activity will be noticed. And then it seems that they will give a lot of money to bigger bands that doesn’t really need it. If that financial support would stop, I think we would definitely be able to do some of the same things we are doing already. I don’t think we would start doing things a whole other different way. It’s just sometimes it’s crippling us because there’s not a lot of house shows–people always put up shows in either youth clubs or show spaces so its both good and bad. Things are more professional in Norway than in other countries, and generally in [Scandinavian] Europe compared to America, because there’s so much funding.

ENDRE- This is not something I know, its just an impression–it seems that in Europe there are more, for instance, squats or scenes that are more stable that have been around for like twenty years and maybe that the American punk scene is more shifting. I’m not sure if that’s correct.

ANDREAS- I think that might have to do with the big cities in America as well. It seems like the cities are so big that there’s small punk communities that doesn’t interact with each other which seems kind of strange to me. In Norway, there’s such a small country that crust punks [and] hardcore straight edge kids all interact and it seems more segregated in America.

KJETIL- We’re very spoiled in Norway. I see that punks in [other parts of] Europe [view] punk [as] being more of a full-time role that they play–like squatters punks that spend their entire days just protecting their abandon house so that the police won’t shut down the place. And it brings punk rock to another level because, in Norway, you can have municipality funding for an anarchy project [lots of laughs] and for American punks that’s pretty…

ANDREAS- …fucking bizarre.

KJETIL- You can see in the U.S. the state is trying to shut down the voice of the people.

ANDREAS- We had a Reclaim the Streets thing taking place after the [latest Bodø] Hardcore Festival and that was basically funded by the municipality. That just seems strange.

ENDRE- Strange, even to us.

MARTIN- If you see it in another light, the people of Norway are really demanding a lot of culture; to be served culture and entertainment from the state. They think that if anything deserves funding, it’s culture. Everything else can be business, and culture should not have to be business in as big a way. So there’s a lot of acceptance and big demand from the population that a lot of money are thrown into culture. If a project is enough culture, it doesn’t really matter if its kind of anarchistic as well. And so, the hardcore festival, which is the second or third biggest music festival in this city, or in the entire county, is such a big thing that the local government [is] just like “Oh, we want to be a part of this. We want to be able to say later that ‘yeah, we funded this amazing festival that all the kids went to–give us some credit’.” They get a lot of credit for spending their money to give people culture, to have fun and music.

KJETIL- It’s spoiled… Norwegians having too much of everything.

MARTIN- It’s sort of a combination. You know, there’s really high taxes here–a lot more than there are in most other countries–so a lot of the money comes in some way from the people. So if you see it from a really political way, its sort of fair that the people get to have things back in that way.

ANDREAS- What’s frustrating is that Bodø is a place where it’s pretty easy to accomplish [getting funding], because when I see other cities [in Norway], there’s a big fight of getting that money. Like in Trondheim, Oslo and Tromsø, which is bigger cities, it’s much harder, because there’s so many more people that want the same money. We have been here for so many years and that’s basically the main reason why we are trusted. But what’s bad about it is there’s only places to put up shows in big cities. Between Trondheim and Bodø there’s an eleven hour drive and there’s really hard to put up a show.

KJETIL- There’s just wilderness…

ANDREAS-…but there’s houses everywhere [implying that there should be house shows in between].

ENDRE- [The distance] is a big difference [between Norway and] a lot of places in the U.S. where the cities are really close and a touring band can play and play a lot in a smaller area. Here, if you want to go north of Trondheim, you have to drive eleven hours to get up here [to Bodø].

ANDREAS- What I really like about the American punk scene is that people organize themselves through houses and there’s no governmental funding and it’s more DIY in a way. It seems like the connections are really good. Because the ideal thing would be to have three or four places to play between Trondheim and Bodø.

KJETIL- Yeah, I definitely see the [differences in] geographical conditions in different places. If you compare Norway to Sweden, for instance–like in north Sweden, there is small cities in not a big range without mountains between them [giggles] and there can be punk rock bands in every city and you have to drive like two hours and you can play in another city and you can tour just in the north. And that creates network between people which is hard to establish when there is geographically conditions as for Norway.

MARTIN- We played three times at this extremely tiny, not even a town, a village [called Inndyr]. Three or four hundred people live there, if that much.

MARTIN- Then you have another place that’s only forty minutes from that which is called Nygårdsjøen. We played there once.

ANDREAS- I think the show we played there is one of the most inspiring things we have ever done because we played with a band–I think the members in the band were like fourteen years old–and we still have contact with those people and they’re building a small punk scene with their band. And it seem like we inspired them in a way.

KJETIL- The guy wrote an assignment for school about us [lots of laughter].

MARTIN- And even got a top grade for it.

ANDREAS- And they travel here for shows in Bodø and it’s just like one concert is all that you have to do to make a lifetime connection.

STEF- Growing up in a place that is as undeniably beautiful as Norway, in which the population of the entire country is less than that of a handful of individual American cities, was it shocking or difficult to experience American sprawl? What are some retrospective thoughts about your trip to the States aside from the venues and shows.

KJETIL- Commercials (like billboards and advertisements).

ANDREAS- I’ve been thinking about one thing when we drive between shows in America–it seems like we are driving through one neighbor[hood] and to the other neighbor[hood]. We drive on the highway and it seems like we haven’t moved at all. I think it seems like everything is very the same and its such a big country and I’m almost creeped out. It seems like something is lost. Everything is like a copy of another copy again and again when it comes to houses and how cities are built. Nothing is different.

KJETIL- Mass-produced.

ENDRE- My biggest impression is actually that it’s not so very different from here unfortunately. I was expecting to come and find hell and I found that hell is where I live too.

MARTIN- One big difference I found was that I talked to a lot of people about walking in nature and it seems so common that if you go for a walk in the woods [in the States], you go on a big road through a forest. Here, I’m used to, at best, going on a tiny path that you can just barely see. I like going where no one has been and just walking in nature.

ANDREAS- Everything seems really preconstructed in America but it’s so hard to talk about America because it’s such a big country. You always end up making a generalization on the entire country based on a couple of driveways you have been in.

KJETIL- But there’s all kinds [of terrain]–you have the desert and you have the mountains and you got everything in that country. I’m very much in love with just being in nature in general and I saw a lot of beautiful nature in America too I think. I saw big forests, for instance, in Connecticut, where we lived [where they stayed a couple of days before the tour began]. I went for a walk in this huge [forest]. There was these mighty trees and I love that very much. But what I got impression from driving from city to city, I thought that there was city between the cities too. When we drive between cities in Norway there will be miles and miles with road that with no houses at all–maybe there’s like a farm here and there and you can see an old barn just falling apart…

ANDREAS- Its sort of fairytale-ish.

KJETIL- …but there was beautiful nature in the United States too. But you could see there was signs and commercials in between the cities, thick of commercials, and that made me feel like I was in a city in between the cities.

STEF- I read in another interview with you guys that, because the music scene in Bodø is small, a lot of shows combine bands and audiences from different genres within the city. Have there ever been any problems with this? Any funny stories? Talk a bit about your thoughts on the Undying/The Spectacle/Requiem show in Richmond, VA (USA)? [This was a show in which bands from different genres within the punk/hc scene played together in a somewhat rough city and a series of fights broke out until the music had to stop for the night.]

ANDREAS- It seems like you don’t have to be into hardcore or punk in Bodø to go to a hardcore punk concert.

ENDRE- There’s not really straight hardcore punk shows. It’s more like a grass roots music scene that everyone that wants to can participate in. In a way, talking about a “punk or hardcore” scene in Bodø seems kind of strange, at least when your talking about music. Which is a good thing.

ANDREAS- I’m so happy that there seems to be a political root even [if] you don’t listen to hardcore music . It seems like there’s some sort of political, DIY spirit in everyone. What I really hope for is that you don’t really have to be a punk or hardcore person to have those political aspects in your life.

MARTIN- I think my biggest problem with the mix of genres and audiences is that a lot of times I find certain people obnoxious just because they’re not going to see a band–they’re going there because there’s a bar there and they’re going to get really drunk.

ANDREAS- It doesn’t really happen very often in Bodø…

MARTIN- No, but that’s the thing—it’s the worst thing about it.

ANDREAS- I have more problems going to punk places and you will meet really drunk punks which have destroyed entire nights for me being on tour. Not to talk shit about drunk punks, but its just like when you have such amazing squats and such amazing houses down in Europe, it seems like some of the places are lost to people that doesn’t really care. All they care about is getting fucked [up]. It’s really sad to see that. We end up talking in the car, “Woh, if we had that house it’d be fucking amazing: It’d be so fucking great” and we end up seeing people who will start fights with the band and people that will be provocative just because they want to. It seems like a waste of time. But that seems like a problem [with]in the punk scene, not because of crossing different kinds of music or people.

STEF- So you’re basically saying that bunches of different people coming to shows in Bodø is actually a positive, community-building tool?

ENDRE- For the most part, totally, yeah.

ANDREAS- It’s cool because, after a while, the people that aren’t into politics [but have] been playing music in Bodø for many years–like older people–start to take interest in us just because we have been here so long. It’s just good to have communication with forty and fifty year-olds that’s been into music for a long time and they’re a whole different background than we are. Its really giving to see that you can actually communicate between scenes inside a small scene.

KJETIL- I wouldn’t prefer to create a community where everybody listened to the same music or wore the same haircut. I think its very important to be able to recognise the differences that you have and be able to have peace within that community.

MARTIN- I think it really sort of generates a lot bigger acceptance between different scenes. In Bodø there’s a big metal scene as well–it’s part of the punk scene. I remember when we were in the U.S. some of the people [the Americans] we were travelling with were really worried one of the nights where there were only metal bands [aside from us] that played, that we might get beat up or something. Here there’s a big acceptance between the different kinds of music. You can have one band just playing pop music and the next band plays hardcore and you see that the first band is standing in front of the stage…

ANDREAS- Or even [members of the] the pop band playing another instrument on the stage with the hardcore band…

MARTIN- Yeah, exactly.

ANDREAS- I like that.

KJETIL- That show in the U.S.–there’s a big difference between hardcore and metal…

ANDREAS- Or even hardcore and punk. Hardcore and punk is the same in Norway.

STEF- So you’ve never experienced anything like the fucking hostile situation in which a “hardcore” band and some “punk” bands played the same show in Richmond?

ANDREAS- We have noticed that in [other parts of] Europe, but never in Norway.

MARTIN- It seems in the U.S. that hardcore dancing is more like beating up as many people as you could in a short time as possible.

ANDREAS- What they call hardcore [dancing] in America, I can’t relate to at all. It’s non-existent in this country, as far as I know.

MARTIN- The most similar thing to that is how some drunk punks act at the Blitz house [in Oslo]. Just being obnoxious and violent against other spectators.

ANDREAS- But at the Blitz its nothing compared [to in the States]. There might be one person that’s making things uncomfortable for other people but I think that healthy in a way. It would suck if you never had any confrontation within your own community because then you will just end up always thinking that this hardcore scene is so much better than the other world on the outside. Then you can actually get a reality check and see that you’re not fooling yourself all the time. You have to be constantly trying to make things even better.

KJETIL- To grow as individuals, I think its very important to stick around people with different views of things. There can be practical reason for segregating yourself. For instance, in this collective we live in here in the city, we are all vegetarians. If I lived with my parents, who are not vegetarians, I would make the food all alone and that would be very boring. But if we would build a wall around our house and never go out, I wouldn’t know what eating meat would mean. There’s forty-thousand people living in this city and, as in general in this world, most people eat meat, and I would have to be confronted by that at some point anyhow. So I’m glad to be aware of that there are different ways of thinking or preferring other things.

ANDREAS- But going back to [talking about] the show in Richmond, I don’t find THAT confrontation really healthy. That [behavior] just seems really strange to me.

MARTIN- The whole thing was so ridiculous… such an aggressive attitude in a lot of people.

KJETIL- There was definitely a provocative tension building up. You could feel that there was two alliances somehow in the room and there was at some point there would be a crash. You can see examples anywhere, like two different groups of people that can’t tolerate each other or respect for each other. It’s so stupid with such small differences that it’s segregated between the punks and the hardcore people.

KJETIL- Music and the dancing can be very connected to each other in all sorts of genres. For instance, I’m really interested in African music and their dancing and playing. Everybody dance and play and you don’t separate between the two sort of. And I guess this genre of hardcore with the violent moshing style in its way have this dancing connected to it… it isn’t only about music and I think that it doesn’t have to be a bad thing, but when situations like this arrive…

STEF- Some of you are straight-edge. Was there a community of sXe kids in Bodø when you were younger to make being sXe easy and natural, or was it a big challenge?

ANDREAS- There’s never really been one. It’s always been like five or six people all the time and it’s never been something that’s important or has been preached at all. I think it’s more like when I found out about the first punk and hardcore bands, they were straight edge bands and I was kind of influenced by that when I was like fourteen or fifteen years old. I think straight-edge meant a lot to me when I was younger but I can’t really relate to the straight edge music or the people that much at the age of twenty-four, but I definitely think it is a really positive Minor-Threat-kind-of-thing. For me, it’s a good thing, but I’ve always been in the impression that differences in habits is a positive thing. People are different and should be different and I think that’s really working in this band. No one really ever talks shit about the other people drinking or smoking.

ENDRE- Being drug free works really well for me and that’s all I got to say about that.

MARTIN- I have no idea if I am straight edge. I don’t know what it is. I don’t care.

ANDREAS- I think Martin made his own straight edge and that fucking rules.

MARTIN- I don’t like being influenced by more things than my body is already pumping into my brain–hormones and different kinds of chemicals.

ANDREAS- The fumes of the soldering iron is enough for Martin.

STEF- Y’all do the majority of the labor to put on a hardcore festival every year in Bodø. Tell me about it.

KJETIL- It started in ‘99…

ANDREAS- …[at a] rehearsal space outside Bodø. It’s been really good. It’s definitely had its ups and downs. It started out really DIY [with] no governmental funding. [It was a] one-day festival thing and it’s grown. I think the last festival was the best even though we have more funding than we ever had and we can do more. At the same time, it’s more political than ever, so it’s not like the political part of the festival has grown into the background and is only a musical festival. I think it’s more political then ever and it’s cooler than ever. It has grown to not be just a music festival. There’s more involved, like workshops and vegan cooking classes and film showings and Reclaim the Streets, and it seems like it’s growing in a really good way.

STEF- Do bands and people from outside of Bodø come to the festival?

KJETIL- Yeah, always.

ENDRE- Mostly from different parts of Norway and Sweden.

STEF-You spoke earlier of a “Reclaim the Streets” style event after one of the shows at this past winter’s hardcore fest. Talk a bit about this.

KJETIL- The whole party of the last show had just went outside with the drums and torches and banners and we had a pirate flag.

ANDREAS- We kind of planned it, [but] it wasn’t on the fliers or the program for the festival. Kind of what inspired us was in America–some of the things we have seen on tour there–Reclaim the Streets events–and we wanted to do that in Bodø and it worked out really really good.

KJETIL- We went up and down and up and down the center [of town]. Its a really small center and it was amazing. In this town we have this street but part of the street is covered by this huge glass house and we went inside. To play the drums inside this glass house was an enormous sound.

MARTIN- It was filled with music and dance.

KJETIL- It was on a weekend, and people mostly go down town and get drunk at some bar. The meeting of those people going out and us marching up and down with drums and everything was very exciting.

ANDREAS- I think it felt good ‘cause I never really thought that was possible in Bodø. It just felt like that is something other people do in other cities that are more punk or that has a bigger scene where more people are into politics or DIY or anarchism. But it seems like we could do it as good as any place else. The police came–it’s strange because the police is so different in Bodø [than in] America–they just basically stood there. There was one confrontation when a person started blowing flames [fire breathing] and they arrested him, but there was never a violent confrontation with [the cops]. We had the street and they never tried to hit us.

MARTIN- I don’t really think they knew what to do. They looked really confused. At one point they tried to stop some of us re-entering the glass house with the banner–[tough cop-voice] “Yeah, you can go in, but you can’t bring the banner.”

ANDREAS- [also cop-voice] “And you have to put out the torch. No torches in the glass house.” And then we went inside again…

MARTIN- We just went around [and came in from the other entrance]…

ANDREAS-…And they didn’t do anything.

MARTIN- They saw that the banner was inside again and they were like [confused cop-voice] “Aw, shit.” They called the entire police force on. There were like ten or twelve [cops].

ANDREAS- And undercover cops came and were standing there looking at us, taking pictures with their cell phones.

KJETIL- And watching us and looking suspicious. I went up to one police man plying the drums in front of him and I asked him to join and dance and he came with this sarcastic comment that I should apply for Idol.

KJETIL- One beautiful thing about it was it didn’t have any specific policy [ideology] that we were marching under–like anybody could join. That was the beautiful thing about it that also manifests how our scene works with the different sort of people. We could all march under the same parole feeling like we could be ourselves.

MARTIN- Actually, some kids came up to me and said “Why are we doing this?” and I said “Because it’s fun,” and they were like “Yeah!!!” and “Because we’re not allowed to. We’re doing it anyway, just in spite” and they were like “Yeah!!! Yeah!!!”

STEF- How do y’all feel about being “on” a specifically anarchist record label (CrimethInc.) that cares more about direct action and anarchist outreach than it does about music and promotion?

KJETIL- Great.

ANDREAS- Really great.

MARTIN- I just wish that our label was sort of like that–that we’d sort of do this ourselves. I mean, we put out on Smart Patrol, but Smart Patrol is this really small thing. I wish just that everyone in this town that wanted to would get together and do a similar thing on terms that everyone here could agree on, not a copy of anything else.

STEF- So you wouldn’t prefer to be on a larger label that really focused on, say, putting out ads all the time to really sell your record?

MARTIN- No, fuck that.

ANDREAS- It’s so strange because there have never been any discussion, like we have never sent out any promo demos. We have been really into the bands on CrimethInc. and we really like how CrimethInc. works and if [they] didn’t want to help us then we’d just have to do it ourselves. There’s never been any other…

KJETIL- I guess if you compare CrimethInc. as a label to other punk labels you’d see MORE interest for the music actually. They’ve released the Sandman record, for instance, which is this singer song-writer dude, and I don’t see that coming from like a general hardcore label so I feel very comfortable with everything about CrimethInc.

ANDREAS- And it seems more based on friendship than any other label. It seems really like a good way of doing things.

STEF- Judging by how your band and its projects function, your lyrical content and how you seem to live your personal lives, it seems fair enough that I call The Spectacle an anarchist/ activist band, whether or not you each individually would choose that label. What does anarchism/activism/DIY mean to each of you in how you function in your everyday lives? What do you hope people will get out of your lyrics, texts and between-song-dialogue at shows?

ENDRE- Being an anarchist, at least in my head, makes up the kind of glasses that I see the world through so it affects everything in my everyday life, from diet and trying to avoid using a car to maybe stealing stuff instead of paying, not that I claim to do that a lot. Basically, it affects everything in my life–how I see the world, how I do specific things, how I think. Like I said, it’s like the eyeglasses I see the world through and I guess everybody can draw the link from that to the word “spectacle.” And from our lyrics and our music too and between-song-dialogue, I hope that people can get inspiration like I’ve found in other bands. If not direct inspirations, then at least that our music will evoke emotions or feelings and matter to people in their lives more so than just a night’s entertainment.

ANDREAS- I think it’s really good to see how trying to inspire younger people gives me so much here in Bodø because you’re not going to see fourteen year old people at punk squats in [other parts of] Europe. I have definitely not seen such younger people, and its such a good inspiration to see that, to do things the punk rock, DIY, anarchistic way. It’s a much better way to do things than doing it the commercial way. I really like how you can set an example that this actually works in a better way–not just a poor alternative that we do because we have to. It’s always frustrating when it’s related to my everyday life, especially when you’re on tour and you communicate so intense and the days feel so much longer. It’s hard to get your life just a tiny bit [like] it is on tour with a band and living your everyday life like that and being involved with projects all the time. It’s a goal, actually, to try to make your everyday life exciting, because the band life will always be exciting when things are happening.

STEF- Just the fact that the four of you (Endre, Andreas, Kjetil, and Martin) live together- that has to have had something to do with the fact that you guys have had such a bond together by playing in a band and decided that you would want to live together and share expenses and stuff. Are there other ways that stuff you’ve learned from punk has spilled into the rest of your lives? For instance, Andreas–you work at a youth club, and Kjetta- -you ride a fucking bike everywhere through the snow instead of driving a car. Is that stuff you think you would do anyway and known about anyway or do you think it has to do with the community you’ve built together through music and ideology?

ANDREAS- I think punk rock really saved my life, to be honest, because I would see myself as a totally different person if I didn’t actually know about punk. I’m so inspired [by] even the closest friends of mine. And it’s strange because we never fight inside the band. It seems like we work pretty good together and I think we are definitely getting better at communicating with each other and just working as a unit.

KJETIL- I feel very very grateful for punk rock in general. At this point, I don’t necessarily get into bands’ music, but all the ideology, philosophy, thoughts and inspiration that I got from it, in a way, changed my entire life. Living together in this house is practical. People mostly move away from this city [and] centralize in bigger cities, and most of our school friends have moved away. If we are to live without [our] parents it makes so much sense. We keep this band running in the city and we plan our lives together in this band and to have things work better, function better and communicate better it makes so much sense to move [in] together.

STEF- Andreas, you run a record label here in Bodø called Smart Patrol Records. What inspired you to start it and have you run into any challenges with pressing or distribution due to your location here in northern Norway?

ANDREAS- Yeah, I guess it just started cause a friend of mine released a record and I could help. That’s just an easy start for a record label cause I didn’t really press the first record, I just helped with financing it. Distribution is pretty hard. I basically distribute the records through, like, us playing shows as a band and that’s really working but the postage is ridiculous overseas from Norway and inside Norway so just sending around records or distributing records, even with people ordering, is really expensive. It just seem like the label really started when we released The Spectacle 10” and it’s half the band’s label and half my label because I’ve released a friend of mine’s like singer/songwriter record by my own money. It’s not like a thing I spend a lot of time on but I think definitely it’s really fun. What I hope to do in the future is to continue, like when we release things ourselves we that can do it through our own small label. I’m hoping in the future to actually have propaganda in Norwegian.

STEF- What other community activities or projects are any of you involved with?

ENDRE- A lot of it is based around the local music scene, in some way or another.

KJETIL- I’ve been part of doing some animal liberation stuff in the city, just handing out fliers and doing some other things, but that’s not something running at a very high degree at this point.

ANDREAS- There’s the youth club, Gimle, where I work and its really a good place and there’s a rehearsal space. I can definitely be really close to the people of the next generation and its really good to see that there are fourteen year old kids starting punk rock bands, like Olle-Magnus [this kick-ass kid--he's the coolest little dude ever!]

STEF- There are six boys in your band. I could ask you why that is, but I already know the answer: male musicians are much easier to find because boys are encouraged to play music while girls are not. Is this something that any of you have spent much time thinking or talking about? What are some things you are doing to fight sexism in either punk/hc or your local community?

MARTIN- I’d like to correct a bit of that. I think in a bigger degree girls are taught to play classical music to a higher degree than boys, in Norway. A lot of girls play piano, violin, and flute and those kinds of instruments.

ENDRE- Not a lot of girls get into rock or the whole playing-in-a-band thing or performing. I think that is a big difference in Norway. It’s not that girls are not taught to play music, but boys are to a much higher degree encouraged to perform, be public, always state your opinion [and] always be proud of yourself, whereas girls are in a way taught to be much more careful with everything that they have to contribute, which sucks, of course. And I don’t feel that I’m doing very much about it, unfortunately, other than to always be as open for girls as boys.

ANDREAS- It’s just hard. I see at the youth club, there’s equally amount of girls as boys but it’s hard just to go to a girl and say “start playing bass or guitar.” It’s not like they’re going to start playing bass or guitar because you’re telling them [to]. And there is a rehearsal space and I see boys getting into playing music but I don’t see [girls] very much. There is actually lots of girls in [the other] rehearsal space, but they are starting to get seventeen, eighteen year olds, but I don’t see a lot of fourteen year old girls. I think its harder to get into the musical scene [if you're a girl].

STEF- Is it true that one of the shows at the hardcore fest (coming up) is women’s night or something?

ANDREAS- Yeah, there’s only girls in the bands playing or the musical artists playing.

KJETIL- Yeah, it’s growing. There are some bands with all girls going now. I play in another band called Beyond the Fences and we’re going up playing in a small city in the north. [There's an all-girl band] coming too and that’s a big development or is important for them.

ANDREAS- But it’s so hard. Where do you start? Like if I knew, I would definitely try.

KJETIL- What I was saying was that for me personally in my everyday life I try to encourage or support [girls]. From the start, it’s a cultural thing very much. I think the whole reason behind it is cultural, like what you’re being taught so, for instance, Gimle, this youth club, is a very good way like to influence girls at an early age and support them and…

ANDREAS- [sarcastically:] …brainwash them into playing bass and drums or guitar.

MARTIN- Another part of this is that young girls and young boys is really segregated from each other. Me and Kjetil, we played in our first band when we were nine. We had already been playing music for six, seven years when we even stated thinking about this or caring or trying to do something about it.

ENDRE- I guess the conclusion is that we think about it, we know about the problem very much [and] we don’t have a good solution.

KJETIL- I remember playing when I was fourteen and fifteen years old. I had this girl in my class that was an amazing violinist. She could hear so well [and] had musicality way beyond my skills. She had been playing the violin since she was six years old. We hung out a lot and we tried to play together and it didn’t work out because she didn’t believe in herself at all. She just laughed at everything she played. She was way more good at the violin than I was at the drums but she stopped because she didn’t believe [in] what she was doing. She didn’t have the self-confidence for doing and that hurt me so much.

STEF- My experience on tour with y’all is that you’re very affectionate with each other, much more than average straight men. Does it have anything to do with Norwegian culture or parental influence or perhaps a rebellion against such things or does it just come naturally from spending a lot of time together?

MARTIN- I’d say definitely the last two for me at least. It’s so against Norwegian culture to be able to be affectionate at all almost.

ANDREAS- And its a good way to sort out your mind on tour actually.

MARTIN- In Norway, guys are not suppose to touch other guys. It’s amazing how freaked out some people got at school when me and a friend were just having fun pretending to make out.

ANDREAS- That’s how society works. Everything that’s not normal is talked upon or looked strange upon.

MARTIN- Then you have the gender culture in Norway. Females are suppose to be close to each other and are suppose to care about each other and they’re suppose to be able to touch anybody, but two males are not suppose to be able to give each other hugs.

KJETIL- When I meet the people I went to high school with after going on punk tours and having a punk rock life and being influenced by its politics on gender, I certainly come aware of this change I been through.

ANDREAS- Do you feel alienated?

KJETIL- No. They naturally distance themselves in fear. I would sort of like, “Oh, it’s good to see you again. It’s been a year since I saw you” and I give this person a hug. It feels like it’s such big issue for this person than it would for me.

ENDRE- It does have a lot to do with us spending so much time together being so close and it is also something we’re conscientious about and it is something we do to rebel against certain things we feel that we’ve been taught by culture and society.

ANDREAS- And it keeps us sane on tour.

MARTIN- It has to do with rebelling against our own boundaries as well, for me. It’s for me. I want to be affectionate with other people regardless of what gender they are if I like them.

ANDREAS- Yeah, its definitely more a rebellion against our own heads than what other people think.

KJETIL- For touring, it felt very honestly, we were small kids from this very small place Norway going to this huge America. Just being close together was in safety. Going to the states, I imagined being lost in this labyrinth of metropolis madness.

ANDREAS- Yeah, it definitely makes you feel safe.

STEF- In an interview I read with you guys in a Norwegian fanzine (that was written in English), Endre stated that he thought the zine should be in Norsk instead of English, yet all The Spectacle’s lyrics so far have been in English. It’s obvious that bands often sing in English instead of their native tongue because it is the language that is most accessible to the largest amount of people worldwide. How much do you feel this has to do with American imperialism? Are there any negative effects you’ve experienced from singing in English instead of in Norsk?

ENDRE- Well, first of all, it has a lot to do with American Imperialism. It has a lot to do with TV and the place that TV has in modern day. In Norway, a lot of the stuff that is on TV is American. There’s so much coming from America to Norway and you get so much English all around that is has to influence you. So, yes, it has a lot to do with American imperialism. I’m not sure if I personally feel that we’ve had any negative effects from singing in English instead of Norwegian…

ANDREAS- I think the negative effect that comes to my mind is that it doesn’t feel that honest to me sometimes. Being the singer, it feels sometimes hard to relate to the English words. When you speak Norwegian, it feels like you’re telling the truth but when you speak in English it seems like you’re just using words that you’ve been taught in school because its not my first language. I don’t get the same strong effect using English as Norwegian sometimes.

ENDRE- [As] fucked up as it may be I actually feel it the complete other way around.

MARTIN- I really think that [because] we sing in English it’s a lot easier to ignore what the lyrics really mean.

ANDREAS- That’s a fucking problem.

MARTIN- Yeah. If we had spoken in Norwegian there’s no way that Norwegian people could ignore what the words actually meant. Now it’s more like, it could just be anything, it could just be a poem, it could mean anything. If we would say some of the things that we say in English in Norwegian, like directly translated it, it would be…

ANDREAS- It would be crushing.

KJETIL- It feels so intense from my concern also.

STEF- Now y’all know why you make me cry, man (as being someone who’s first language is English).

ANDREAS- Some of our lyrics, I tried to directly translate them to Norwegian [and] it makes them more powerful. I just hope that people who speaks English as their native language feel the same powerful way I would feel if they were in Norwegian. On the record we’re recording now I’ve written a song in Norwegian and its hard to write in Norwegian. You expose yourself more naked in Norwegian. The words they are so fucking… they are so true. Like every word means something. There are no filler words in a way and I really hope that we can have more songs with Norwegian lyrics in the future.

ENDRE- I just want to say that English is an easier language to use for lyrics and poetry because the English language has hundreds of thousands more words simply than Norwegian has. An English word usually has a lot of synonyms, but in Norwegian you often just have one word, and you have a lot of more tools in the language to use which makes it easier to express yourself in a way that also is aesthetically good.

MARTIN- That’s very subjective though. Its based on centuries-old poetry like Shakespeare and other kind of things–what is “aesthetically good.” You don’t really have that much Norwegian literature that is considered really aesthetically good. Most of the famous Norwegian writers of different kinds–what they talk ABOUT is what they’re known for, not the actual language.

ENDRE- I just meant an aesthetic that is satisfying to me.

ANDREAS- I think one of the most powerful lyrics, in a funny way, is the Karlsøy Prestegård lyric, “They shape you from you’re a baby” and its so powerful in Norwegian I think and it’s not powerful in English at all. It just sound fucking stupid in English.

STEF- What is this?

ENDRE- Its a punk band from far, far up north… an old punk band from probably like the 80’s or something which is still around actually.

MARTIN- We have been on tour in Europe and America and Sweden. It’d be strange if we kept talking in between songs in Norwegian in America, right?

ANDREAS- No one would understand us. But I think there are ways around that as well. Like when you’re releasing a record you have the opportunity, if you write Norwegian lyrics, to translate it into English.

MARTIN- It’s not a really good reason to speak English but…

ENDRE- …it is a reason, definitely.

MARTIN- It’s at least a reason that a lot of commercial bands use because if they want to strike it [on an] international [level] they have to sing in English or they’re not going to get famous anywhere else other than Norway because then people won’t understand any of it.

ANDREAS- Just a question from me to you [Endre]: How would you feel about having Norwegian lyrics in The Spectacle?

ENDRE- Good. We now have one [song in Norwegian] and I’m [feeling] positive [about it].

STEF- What inspirations do you bring to the band that are drawn from within the local or international punk/hc community?

ANDREAS- I think we got a lot of inspiration from both our European and American tours. I think there are two main inspiration that I brought home [and] that was the Reclaim the Streets thing that would never have happened in Bodø if it wasn’t for the inspiration we got in America. We knew about the idea but we had to see it in real life to bring it home, I guess. And then it’s how collective works and how squats are working in Europe and that’s a big inspiration I think.

KJETIL- Catharsis, Newborn, Undying. Those are the bands that mean something to me.

ENDRE- I agree with Andreas–seeing how scenes, squats, venues and spaces are organized and how people organize themselves to create things and to fight against certain things is very much an inspiration.

STEF- What inspirations do you bring to the band that are drawn from outside the punk/hc community?

ENDRE- The biggest inspiration for me can be life experience which can take place within or without the punk hardcore community. There’s a lot of trees around here, like outside the house we’re sitting in now and on the hills and in the autumn they all change colors. I always find that tremendously inspiring to see all those beautiful colors on a nice autumn day and the same thing in the winter. Its bright all summer here, and when the winter and autumn comes and it starts to get dark again and you suddenly see the stars again and I remember that they exist again, because I had almost forgotten during the summer when its bright all night. I always find that experience inspiring every year.

ANDREAS- And the feeling you get during the summer in Bodø when you’re out skateboarding or you’re just hanging out or making food outside. The feeling when it’s five in the morning and its still bright–it feels like you’re living in a movie sometimes in a way. You’re never tired and you can just go on and on and it’s just beautiful.

KJETIL- That’s the strange climate thing about this place. You get the bigger parts of the year [when] it’s dark and depressing but when the sun suddenly comes, it’s enormous in energy.

MARTIN- I remember a lot of the summer–having been at friends’ places and just walking home, “OK, it’s four (am) and it looks like its four in the afternoon.” But the sky, instead of being light blue everywhere, is like a light pink in with the blue everywhere twirling in with each other and I just want to walk forever, even though I’m walking on pavement. The feeling is so amazing.

ANDREAS- And the feeling where there [is] nobody in the streets. You’re alone walking from the city or walking home on Reinslettvien [the street they live on]. It’s so wonderful.

MARTIN- It seems like everyone has just abandoned the city. They just [said], “Fuck this–we’re going to the mountain. We’re just going to live in the forest…”

ANDREAS- …and you’re the last one going up the trail.

MARTIN- You’re just walking and there are no people there. The cars are still there, the houses are still there, but it looks like in the middle of the day.

KJETIL- It’s so silent. That’s another thing.

MARTIN- Yeah, it’s totally silent and you just hear the birds singing and you see perhaps a cat crossing the road.

ANDREAS- It’s cool cause when you experience those nights during the summer. You wouldn’t like to be anywhere else in the world.

MARTIN- And during the winter its sometimes…

ANDREAS- …like now, how you [Stef] experienced it here.

STEF- [During the winter you have the] Northern lights, though.

ENDRE- Very inspiring, yeah.

MARTIN- But back to the [question]. Music–no one in our group has more inspiration from the punk hardcore music scene than from outside. Everybody listens to all kinds of music and we love it. We love everything that feels good to listen to that can inspire us and that we draw emotions from and that we can take things from anywhere and just create something.

ANDREAS- We listen to a lot of music that doesn’t sound at all like The Spectacle. Like Endre is a big fan of Radiohead and listen to a lot of that and Martin [as well]. We are not that focused on keeping up with the latest hardcore punk bands. We’re more focused on what we do and I don’t think we listen a lot to music that really resembles our own music.

MARTIN- This is working so well because, at the moment, The Spectacle is one of my favourite bands and a lot of other favourite bands are local bands that have started up not too long ago and it’s just not being limited by some stupid rules. You’d think that punk would be all about that [having no rules], but it’s not in general. Most punk bands sound exactly the same and it’s not a good thing. Screaming out what you’re feeling at the moment and just creating small pieces of art that resembles how you feel about something should not come out the exact same for hundreds and hundreds of bands.

KJETIL- It’s like you keep the same frame, but you still want to express yourself through that frame.

STEF- Observing you guys in the studio and noticing your close scrutiny of details and your collective perfectionist attitude, I gather that you all take yourselves very seriously as musicians and as a band–more so than most American punk bands. Where does this work ethic come from? Is it a general attitude in Scandinavia or do you think you work harder than most bands in general?

KJETIL- My experience is that there are a lot good-sounding punk bands from Scandinavia. I think that has a lot to do with Scandinavia being in the West–being wealthy countries and having resources, equipment, [and] rehearsal space.

MARTIN- Having such resources available to us we can just concentrate all our work on making our music. If another punk band has to spend five years just to get their own rehearsal place, we have spent those five years just rehearsing in the place we had from the beginning. So I don’t really think we necessarily work any harder.

ANDREAS- I would imagine that most bands that are active are doing as much as we do.

MARTIN- Perhaps we’re just a bit picky when it comes to how things are suppose to be. I at least wish that I was a lot better at things than I am and I don’t really do anything about it except do the takes again and again until I feel they’re good enough.

KJETIL- Me and Martin and Torbjørn went to the same class to this music high school and just socializing with people playing different music influenced me a lot personally. For instance, we had a guy playing classical guitar and a guy playing classical piano very seriously. Just talking to these people and peeking into the world of classical music, you see an enormous discipline of work. These guys practice like seven hours a day and that’s what make up their lives. I think that work ethic influenced me. I play different sorts of music [like] jazz and that’s been very helpful.

ANDREAS- I guess every band find their own way for what works for them.

STEF- Personally, my favorite Spectacle song is “The Cave.” Endre, having written the lyrics, please talk about what they mean to you and what you were feeling when you wrote them.

ENDRE- When I started writing the lyrics I was trying to say something about how human beings used to have a mythology and a history of history-telling, which has, in a way, been replaced by a more sterile and more “objective science” which to me is just basically another myth. It’s just that it’s thought of to be an objective myth thus we think of it as the truth. In that “evolution” something has been lost. It’s not just mythology/religious/spiritual beliefs/culture versus modern-day science- its the way human beings lived thousands and thousands of years ago as opposed to how we live now. [There is] a big part of being a human being, [of] living in this world, on Earth, that is missing in my life, in modern-day society–and I don’t know exactly what it is. A lot of people use the word “nature” in a more or less pretentious way, in the same way people talk about “God” or “culture.” It’s sort of a word that has no meaning because its a word that is so big an all-encompassing that nobody can really fathom what they’re talking about. The trees and the animals around you or the rock that you step on–there’s some sort of connection I think that every living being is suppose to have with their surroundings that we have lost in modern-day society and I want to find that back. And “The Cave” is sort of a symbol of that.

ANDREAS- Do you mean that in the way of being more like animals or being something different?

ENDRE- Not necessarily. I don’t think that we have to go back to being cave men or running around naked in the forest necessarily. There’s something that’s suppose to be there that is not there or that is hidden within us. It’s hard for me to explain cause I don’t really know what it is. It’s just a general feeling that I have that, as a human being in this world, I’m lacking something. There’s something I’m suppose to feel or have. You bring up animals to talk about that–it’s like if you observe how animals live, it’s almost like they know how to live, they know how to be, how to exist in the world. Human beings today, not all human beings, but a lot–it’s like we don’t have a clue.

ANDREAS- It’s strange if you compare how we live now and how people lived in a hunter-gatherer society like back when the cave men and women existed. The evolution–did it do things better? I think happiness is important when it comes to if you’re living a good life. Are we happier now? I think we have more problems now than ever. When you see how we live today and how capitalism is not an old system at all and everyone has just accepted it for “This is right for us.” Things are really fucked up. Just basic life–eating, sleeping… It seems like its more complicated in a bad way.

KJETIL- I am personally very concerned with meditation and that has helped me getting very much in contact with myself, my own intuition and the things that are lost by human beings. In a big city, for instance, there are so much distractions everywhere and the life you lead is so stressing. Maybe you watch TV and that’s totally to distract yourself from feeling your senses. And drugs, alcohol, cars, noise–your senses are totally deafened in every way. The things that makes life meaningful–we are totally able to find theses things again because we ARE animals and we are a part of nature and we have to accept that.

STEF- Any closing comments or other topics you’d like to talk about?

KJETIL- Love.

ANDREAS- Like a true rock star, “love and peace.”

KJETIL- No, not like a cliché, but like real love.

(laughing)

ENDRE- What about it?

KJETIL- Fight with love, not hate.

ANDREAS- Hello, John Lennon.

KJETIL- We should hate hate with love.

ENDRE- [sarcastically] Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

KJETIL- It does. That’s my word, not the band’s.

ENDRE- The Hate-acle…. I can say one more thing about inspiration. I feel weird about name-dropping, but there’s a band from New Orleans called The Hunger Artist which is the best band I’ve seen in a long time, that is not a local band and they deserve mad cred y’all.

Contact The Spectacle at: Kirkeveien 5 / N-8009 Bodø / Norway

the-spectacle.com, ihatethespectacle@yahoo.no

The Spectacle 10” available from smartpatrolrecords.com

The Spectacle “Rope or Guillotine” CD available from crimethinc.com

new full-length CD out on CrimethInc. soon.

Contact interviewer at stef@crimethinc.com

This interview was originally in Last Hours #10. Visit the shop for more information!